This afternoon, the blog passed 12,000,000 all-time hits. While still smaller than some of other sites in the top ten legal blogs, we just passed 11,000,000 not long ago and we have continued to grow. I am very proud of our community and our attempt to offer a place for civil and responsible conversation. I encourage our regulars and visitors to continue to avoid the personal attacks and name calling common elsewhere on the Internet.
The continued growth of the site shows that our approach to blogging resonates with a good number of people. I continue to be concerned in reading comments that take personal shots and use insulting language. I hope that the recent debate over civility in legal blogging will reaffirm the need of our regulars to avoid insults and personal jabs. If you do not like a person’s take on a story, there is no need to characterize the writer or the writer’s motivations. Let’s deal with the ideas and leave the ad hominem attacks to other sites.
Thanks again for making the site such a great success.
Here are the list of countries represented by viewers and commentators on the blog with the first being obviously the most prevalent:
Country Views
United States
Canada
United Kingdom
Germany
Sweden
France
Australia
India
Philippines
Ireland
Singapore
Jonathan Turley
Now, have I made unfounded accusations against Kevin? I have no idea!~anon
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anon, I don’t usually get involved in this kind of crapfest but honestly, after seeing that line….you are full of merde…..
Lottakatz,
It becomes a lot harder to avoid “feeding the troll” when said troll is using your real name to smear you with lies. I feel that demonstrating that anon is a pathetic, dishonest, hypocritical, craven moron is perfectly appropriate and if that is “wrecking the thread” then so be it. I’m not willing to suffer fools–especially fools with vendettas against me–gladly.
Woody, you are probably doing something that WordPress does not accept. For example, more than two links in a single comment will trigger the spam blocker. Also, there are a handful of words that are blocked because they are not acceptable in polite society. Finally, WordPress has an occasional HTML hiccup that no one seems to understand.
Someone is erasing my posts…does the fbi have a wiretap on this computer or is mr. turley erasing these posts
Like Oro Lee said via a good vid: DO NOT FEED THE TROLLS. Just stop. If you enable the conflict you want the conflict. After making my own posting wrestling with the question of confrontation I gave it more thought and DNFTT’s seems to be the best, most straightforward approach.
***
Guest Blawgers, what are they; blawgers, commenter or both? Some of the GB threads go off the rails because trolls attack the GB and the GB responds.
The Professor doesn’t comment at all. He just puts up a posting and moves on. Some of his postings receive a hundred comments, some receive four. He doesn’t answer questions and doesn’t respond to personal attacks. If a posting needs updating or revision due to changes in the situation he does another posting and doesn’t comment on that one either. His lack of engagement is an attribute of his position and reinforces that position. It’s a matter of defining and reinforcing a role.
Our GB’s generally do resource rich postings and will add links and references as the discussion progresses or actively engage in the discussion as a commenter. Many postings are in-depth on a subject so I know that they have been edited down and there are probably many links and ideas that are not included in the posting. It is the natural progression to insert them in comments as the discussion progresses.
But writing is an art and like all art, one does it and puts it out there and that’s that. Artists don’t go back and retouch a painting or re-write a chapter because the critics panned it. They seldom get in fist-fights with critics.
We all know that the GB’s are going to be attacked as a concept or personally so why play that game? The only thing better for some commenters than to attack a GB is to wreck their thread by turning it into a personal scuffle. Who needs that?
Just a couple of thoughts.
Well LeeJCarroll, the story continues and unfolds right before your very eyes……
Slart,
It’s hard being a target especially where your reputation/career may be at stake. That puts you and the guest bloggers in a separate category from us mere (anonymous) mortals. Good luck with the apps.
Henman (or should I say Dr. Moriarty),
Imagine how I feel having to respond to it.
Gene,
I’ve never noticed your inability to disagree with me–perhaps I’m just not looking hard enough… 😉
I agree with you guys about {W(t)=^..^ for all t <= now}'s avatar. Definitely brings thoughts of fear and loathing to my mind, if you know what I mean…
Enjoy your depredations of the centrarchidae and percidae families.
Oro Lee,
You sound like a wise man. I know that we don’t have to be mean, but it’s hard to turn the other cheek when someone repeatedly tries to smear you with lies and if I don’t point out his ignorance, dishonesty, and hypocrisy, how will he ever learn?
Regarding what you said about Backpacker magazine, my intention is to make a tool that allows you to do that sort of searching (and ignoring, etc.) with a blog. It’s up to the user if they want to minimize or maximize angst, though… 😉
Gene,
May the fish shiver out of their scales at your approach just to make the cleaning easier for you.
Have a great time!!!
Oro,
“It should also, like the Backpacker forum, have a feature where the comments of selected posters are not displayed on your computer.”
From your lips to the WordPress developers ears.
OS wrote, “Personally, I think every blog should have a user friendly search feature.”
Amen! About a year ago there was a thread that was hijacked (No!, you say) with a post about the coup effected by the Constitutional Convention whose sole charge was to perfect the Articles of Confederation. There was a lot of revisionist history, but this one poster – I think a DC attorney who doesn’t post much – just knocked all the arguments out of the ball park. His was a scholarly, well written and temperate work. I looked for it a few months ago and could not find it.
I know it’s not a blog, but I like the way Backpacker magazine set up its forum pages by subject. I can search by author or Boolean search by subject. In one evening I obtained a tremendous amount of information about hammocks, their manufacturers and quality of different types of products. The use of that information dramatically increased the quality of my outdoor adventures (I had previously used a parachute hammock with a overhead tarp — sucks in mist).
It should also, like the Backpacker forum, have a feature where the comments of selected posters are not displayed on your computer. Saves on scrolling. And angst.
“[W]herever you are, that’s where you’ll be.”
Is that you Banzai?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jv_jkju_iZg
We don’t have to be mean.
So, I checked in about this time last night and there were about 100 comments with bettykath’s “Well done” comment. Well done, bk!
This is my first time back to this thread and we’re at 211 comments!. What the heck? An additional 100 posts about the number of hits this blog has received? An additional 100 posts about how nice we all get along?
I knew better than to look. I mean, I was already surprised that we had reached 100 comments without the thread turning into a pissing match. Pretty good. Let’s hear it for civility!!!
But I looked anyway. I normally don’t look at anything past the 100th post for the reason that: (1) we’re probably off topic because (2) it’s turned into a pissing match.
Ta da!!! Ninety minutes later, one post and a broadside against three other posters and the fun and games begin!!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ulNSlES1Fds
And I’m gonna stick with that 100 post rule from now on. Mostly.
OT Sidebar – if any of you were looking forward to the next installment on propaganda this weekend, it is delayed until next weekend due to a sudden outbreak of fishing tomorrow. I shall hear the lamentations of the bass and the cries of terrified perch driven before me! Tremble in fear, Perciformes! Your doom is nigh!
I posted this earlier but it got caught in the moderation filter so I cleaned up the language…
anon said:
It’s nice that you feel like you have the right to go romping through my liberty in defense of a threat to your privacy which you can’t explain, let alone substantiate. As if I really care to know the location of your parent’s basement or the name of a pathetic coward such as yourself. Sorry, but you flatter yourself if you think that I would care enough to look at your personal information even if I did have access, let alone go out of my way to find out the sad particulars of your wretched existence.
HenMan,
Ether! It’s not just for breakfast anymore!
(And yeah, I agree about the avatar. I think W=^..^ wins this year’s coolest avatar with that one, hands down.)
Personally I was mildly impressed/amused that after months of saying all manner of nasty things about me personally, he has the spunk/stupidity to ask me to assist in attacking you, Dr. Kesseler. And that he did it as if he was granting me a special ability. I’ve always had the ability to tell you whatever I please. That I never castigated you or demanded you destroy anything probably has less to do with my inability to do so and more to do with, oh, I don’t know, perhaps the fact that you did nothing wrong in the first place.
What’s that Yiddish word that rhymes with “muck”? Is it “suck”? No . . . that’s not it. Close though.
At the risk of being accused of being Kevin Kesseler or Professor Moriarty, I would like to say that reading this excruciatingly long and boring exercise in paranoia is the most unproductive thing I have done all week. The only good that has come of this is seeing Woosty’s amazingly beautiful Gravatar, which is almost identical to a wonderful dream I had at St. Michael Hospital many years ago under the influence of ether. Almost makes me want to have my hemorrhoids out again. God rest ye merry, Gentlemen. Let nothing you dismay.
Regards,
Sid Sockpuppet, Ph.D., BVM
OS,
anon has always spoken volumes by what he chooses to be silent about. And it doesn’t speak well of him…
Slarti, did you notice the deafening silence in response to the various iterations of the word “property”? How quickly gloating morphs into the quiet of a tomb, eh?